Turnbull Tartan

Clan Turnbull

The Turnbulls were a Border family of Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire. Their earliest firm record is a charter of Robert I dated 10 March 1316, granting to William called Turnbull the west part of Philiphaugh and Schelgrene in the sheriffdom of Selkirk, together with the office of constable of Selkirk; a second grant of land west of Philiphaugh followed on 16 October the same year, rendered to the Crown for one large arrow. Claims of a Turnbull chief in 1214, or of Rule-water names in the 1120s, circulate widely but rest on no cited source.

The story that the name was earned when William of Rule turned a charging bull away from Robert the Bruce comes from Hector Boece, writing in the sixteenth century, and is tradition rather than record; the likelier derivation is the English personal name trumbald, meaning strong or bold. The family held Bedrule and the lands along Rule Water as tenants of the Douglases, together with Minto and Barnhill. A Turnbull champion was killed at Halidon Hill in 1333, and James IV’s justice raid on Rule Water — at which the Turnbulls submitted with swords in hand and halters about their necks — is dated 1510 by most accounts and 1511 by some. Bedrule was burned by the English in 1544 and again by Sussex’s army on 19 April 1570, and was bought back by Walter and William Turnbull in 1594.

The Turnbull tartan

Every Turnbull tartan is modern. The Turnbull Clan Association records that John F. Turnbull of Hawick designed them in 1977, drawing on features of the Bruce and Douglas patterns; the registered records carry dates of 1979, 1980 and 1983, which are dates of recording rather than of design.

Two designs are genuinely distinct: a Dress sett, woven by Lochcarron, and a Hunting sett on a blue ground. The Hunting pattern was revised in 1983, when its maroon guard line was changed to black; that is a second version of the same design rather than a third tartan. A further pattern, Turnbull Dress Bruce, appears from about 2007 and its origin is not documented.

A note on honesty: Modern and Ancient Turnbull are colourways of the Dress and Hunting setts rather than tartans in their own right, and no Turnbull sett is older than 1977. The association’s statement that its tartans are “registered with the Lord Lyon” is a confusion of two bodies: tartans are recorded with the Scottish Register of Tartans, while the Lyon Court deals with arms.

Clan facts

References

1. Turnbull tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Charter of Robert I, 1316 (RRS, v, no. 87) — People of Medieval Scotland
3. Dress, Hunting and Ancient Turnbull Tartans — Turnbull Clan Association
4. Honorary Clan Chief — Turnbull Clan Association